


Find a Place, Make it Weird

by Januarium



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, New York
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:13:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Januarium/pseuds/Januarium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Bushwick loft is not exactly wheelchair friendly. Santana goes apartment hunting for Artie and co.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Find a Place, Make it Weird

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thanks to killerqueen-80 and amongsoulsandshadows for beta-ing this for me. This is a bit of a think piece and may well become part of a wider series of New York pieces. I suspect The Gossip Trap exists in this universe.

The loft was great, sure - not that she would admit it - but it definitely was not wheelchair accessible. Santana kind of hated that that was her first thought when she found out Artie was moving to New York. She still sometimes felt her rage boil up when she thought of him and she definitely did not want to live with him, but she could not help but think it sucked he would probably be stuck in some special dorms and barely able to visit them. Which should be a good thing, dammit.

When she saw the piece of paper in the window a month later she didn’t want to look. Sometimes Santana felt tight in her skin and manic when she realised the type of person she’s becoming and that was when she lashed out with words or tell the sort of lies that no one believed and made her even angrier because she used to be amazing at lying.

Now, instead, she was this person, the type who notices that there is a ramp with a handrail leading up to the entrance and sign saying apartment for rent. She had actually screwed around with an amazing girl, Jada, who filmed fucked up fairy tales and wanted her to dance in one. Jada studied at the Brooklyn Film Academy and Santana had been there for filming. The apartment was exactly halfway between the college and the loft.  
So Santana called the number and went to see the place. The woman showing her around has purple streaks in her grey hair and a matching sparkly cane. There was a mobility scooter by the door. “It won’t be available until mid-August,” she explained. “Decided I’m too old for Brooklyn, I’m moving out to Jersey to live with my son.”

Santana put on her best respect your elders smile and nodded as the walked into the little living room. The floors were all smooth and the doorways wide.

The woman opened the bathroom door and Santana saw bars and rails and a seat in the shower. “This probably looks a bit funky to you, doesn’t it? The woman asked. “Would it just be you moving?”

It took Santana a minute to realise what she was asking. “Oh, I live in this loft, not far from here, but I have some friends from Ohio moving here for college.” She took a deep breath and did not let herself cringe at the word friend for Sam, Tina and Artie. Blaine was ok. “Actually, one of them is in a wheelchair.”

The woman looked surprised. “And he’s coming here for college?”

“Yeah, he’s going to film school. He thinks he’s going to be a director.” Santana was loath to admit it even to herself, but when she’d seen Brittany dance in his movie she had been amazed that he had somehow captured her essence on screen. She still puts that down more to Britt’s skills than Artie’s.

The woman smiled. “Oh, an artist, that’s fantastic. What about the others?” She lead them out of the bathroom and back through the living room to the tiny kitchen, still wide enough for the chair but Artie would probably have to reverse out.

Santana laughed, “You call a boy with a video camera an artist? Well one of them is a literal artist, he’s going to one of those fancy art schools that don’t care about academics, just feelings, you know?” She had been surprised by that, but Britt had to have seen something in him. The soul of an artist made sense. Until she heard that most of his art was done with pasta, that was.

The woman grinned as she lead them to the first bedroom. “How many of them are there?” She asked, “This place isn’t exactly big.”

Santana laughed. “I dunno, it gots walls, that’s a bit of a step up to me.” The room had a set of twin beds and two desks and Santana wasn’t really sure how it all fit. “There’s four, but I bet they’ll share. The other two, one is going to Tisch and the other going to NYADA, with my roommates.”

The woman sat down on one of the beds, eyes wide. “NYADA?” She looked wistful.

Santana nodded. “It wouldn’t sound so great if you had to live with theatre queens practicing their scales at 6am.” She stopped. She had been trying so hard to be nice, the sort of person whose friends you want living in your apartment.

The woman just laughed, “I have lived it, a few decades ago.” She got up from the bed with her cane and lead Santana out of the room, back into the living area everything came off of. “What about you then?”

Santana could not help her honest smile. “I’m a dancer.” She was still figuring out the specifics of making it a career, and she wanted to sing and act as well, but dancing was the heart of all the work she did. She’d been able to get enough bits of work here and there to quit the bouncer job and the coyote ugly bar, and it was getting there. She mostly kept the cage dancing gig because it paid the best, Rachel hated it, and she met a lot of hot girls.

They went into the last room, a bedroom dominated by a large bed with beautiful fabrics and strange knickknacks spread throughout the room. The woman settled into a chair and gestured for Santana to sit on the bed. “I should have guessed that one.” She gestured around the room. “I’ve cleared out the space everywhere else, but I can’t bear to give up this space until I have to.”

Santana was still busy looking, it was stunning. “One of my roommates would love it. He works at Vogue.com and whenever we see an interesting space he insists on stopping to take ‘inspirational pictures’ for his ‘mood boards’.” She could not help the sarcastic finger quotes marks, but the woman just laughed.

“In which case it’s an incredible compliment if you think he’d like it here. I thought you said your roommates went to NYADA?”

Santana rolled her eyes. “He does both and still has time to hog the couch for 90s tv marathons.”

“Very impressive. And you’re from Ohio?”

Santana was not really sure why she was telling this woman all of this, but it felt natural. “Yeah, we all are. We went to high school together.”

The woman was full out grinning. “Who knew you could still find groups of artists escaping the Midwest together?”

Santana had not really thought of it that way. “Most of us were just trying to escape and we’ve ended up stuck with each other.”

The woman smiled warmly, “Well that just might be even better. Now, I’ve lived in this place for a damn long time, its mine and I don’t want to let it go to just anyone. I don’t need the money from rent, so I can pick and choose.”

Santana bristled and was just about to release some Snix when the woman continued. “I want your friends to email me, I want to hear about them from them. I don’t want to leave this place empty and I knew I couldn’t let myself give it up to just anyone, when I’ve paid so much to make it accessible and so many people need that. It may not be suited to your friends needs, although I owl be willing to negotiate something with my contractor if it’s simple, but it’s not you I need to discuss that with.” She looked Santana right in the eye. “What I really wanted, though? Was to find a bunch of artists to make this place weird again.”

Santana laughed and couldn’t help just feeling happy because taking a place and making it their own was something New Directions members could do.


End file.
